Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Call-in to challenge Council IT spending decision
Proc12. Contract for the supply of desktop and laptop hardware and associated professional services
The controversial decision by Haringey’s Labour Council to spend £3.3million on new computers will be challenged at a special meeting of the Overview & Scrutiny Committee next Wednesday, 24th August 2011. In July, Labour members agreed to spend millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money despite only having one successful bidder to replace all of the Council’s computers.
The decision is considered to be inside the policy and budget framework, however,
• The decision to award a £3.3million contract based on only one valid bid after two procurement rounds cannot be considered as achieving value for money for local taxpayers.
• The Council is currently reorganising its workforce and therefore is not able to provide certainty to IT providers on its hardware needs.
• No details have been provided as to the risk of this project being delayed and what the effect on services for local people would be.
• Lack of public scrutiny and information of a decision that commits significant public resources in a time of scarce funding.
The variation of action proposed is:-
• That procurement is delayed for 6 months to 1 year to allow a more accurate demand (i.e. final Council officer headcount) to be confirmed, to allow the Council to go to market with less uncertainty in the expectation of getting a better price through tendering.
• For the Council to review of the ‘approved suppliers’ list to understand why, on two occasions, there was only one valid bidder for this contract.
The Council’s spending priorities are being questioned at a time when funding is scarce. The Council cannot be sure that the best price was achieved and it should delay its decision until the Council reviews why only one supplier bid for the contract and if different solutions could secure better value for money.
Considering that Haringey Council has a history of massively overspending on IT projects, local residents should not bear the brunt of similar bad decisions.
The agenda can be found on the Haringey Council website.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Clive Carter on
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Thanks for posting this Karen.
Apart from my immediate scepticism about this latest bonfire of cash, I do have a specific question. Does this new spend feature Open Source software, by any chance, or is it another costly licensing deal?
Before another penny is spent on "IT" at the council, has there been a proper assessment, preferably an independent assessment, into the long-term savings likely by deploying Open Source software?
Within the council, there is likely to be deeply entrenched vested interests in this matter. DOS-Windows machines (AKA Poxy-DOS-Boxes) require a lot of maintenance and that provides a lot of employment at high rates of pay. Which is isn't necessarily good for the public in the long run.
A few years ago, Haringey's infamous "Tech Refresh" project, led by the disgraced Councillor Charles Adje, resulted in an overspend of, I believe, more than £10,000,000. But then, its only tax-payers' money.
This latest project has got "disaster" written all over it.
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Permalink Reply by Karen Alexander on
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Thanks for this Clive - it is certainly a question that can be asked at the meeting next week.
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I note there was only one valid bid for a contact worth in the region of £3,300,000. In these straightened times, this is surely surprising of itself. Among the questions that occur to me are:
Did the disastrous Tech Refresh project affect relations with suppliers such that few potential suppliers in this area are keen to do IT business with Haringey?
Was the bidding "engineered" in any way to favour a particular supplier who for whatever reason, enjoys a cosy relationship with one or more individuals at the council? (NB, I have no knowledge of impropriety in this case: but this does not look right.)
In a similar case of council procurement, it has been suggested (How to flog a Palace for Peanuts A quick guide) that the Developer-of-Last-Resort was helped to get the inside running for the title of "Preferred Bidder" for Ally Pally. The smallest research would have revealed the company's reputation.
This was in a council bidding process that was claimed to be fair, open, rigourous and transparent. And pigs fly.
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Permalink Reply by Inkjetpack on
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I have no knowledge of how Haringey runs these procurements, but as the value is over €100,000 it should mean that it goes for European wide tender using the OJEC route - www.ojec.com. I’d be very surprised if they only received one tender from all possible EU suppliers. The Office of Government Commerce (OGC) has a dedicated IT team who may be able to provide additional support in this area if appropriate: http://www.ogc.gov.uk/IThardware_6728.asp.
In regards to use of open source software; in principle this is a good idea, but it may not be feasible to switch from a proprietary solution to service each of the main IT functions due to the differing maturity levels in each area.
I’d be interested to know if there are any current total cost of ownership comparisons (including any switching costs, support staff and user training, etc) available for the move to OSS?
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Perhaps only one contractor in Europe wishes to deal with Haringey? If there were a desire to engineer a sweetheart deal, there could be ways to work around the €100,000 threshold if it could lead to genuine competition. I'm surprised that the council is able to conjure up such a lot of money for any purpose when we are led to believe that money is so tight, the old and young must suffer closures of their facilities.
I would like to know if Haringey has looked at Open Source in a way that is objective and disinterested. Other local authorities have either adopted Open Source or are considering the best ways to introduce it or to integrate it with their old proprietary legacy software.
It would not surprise me if this avenue has been ignored or disregarded by vested interests, mainly because it promises to lower costs in the long run.
Even an outsider can discern some bad practices in Haringey IT. For example, some documents (though not all) are still printed out onto paper and then scanned as an image by a machine and converted into a PDF. This is hopelessly and highly inefficient.
It begs the question: are these documents being made un-searchable deliberately? The waste is also in file space, and the time taken by staff in scanning pieces of paper and of course, the lower quality.
In my opinion, these documents should be produced as PDFs in the first place.
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